Local governments in China have launched a special inspection of
the country's building, services, catering and manufacturing
industries and are taking complaints from the tens of thousands of
migrant workers who remain unpaid as the New Year draws near.
"We hardly have time to go to the toilet since the complaint
phones began ringing," said an official in the Labor and Social
Security Bureau of southwest China's Sichuan
Province, who requested not to be named.
More than 160 telephone calls from migrant workers complaining
about their employers' defaulted payment have been answered since
the department opened the hot line on Dec. 1, the official
said.
Seven complaints involving some 400,000 yuan (aboutUS$48,200 )
were handled within two days while other complaints were still
under investigation, he said.
In China's capital Beijing, the municipal government has also
begun a massive check since Dec. 1 into migrant workers'payment
held back by their employers.
"I finally retrieved my payment which was four months in
arrears," said Tian Shirong in a trembling voice while holding his
defaulted payment -- 2,000 yuan, or about US$241.
"I can securely spend my New Year at home now," said Tian, 29,
who is from central China's Hubei
Province working for a construction company in Beijing's Xuanwu
District.
According to statistics from the All-China Federation of Trade
Unions, China has 94 million migrant rural laborers, whose
employers are in arrears up to 100 billion yuan (US$12.1 billion).
Over 70 percent of payment default comes from construction
enterprises, and the next biggest defaulter is catering
companies.
The issue has aroused extensive concern from high-ranking
officials, governments at various levels and the entire society. Premier Wen
Jiabao pledged in October to help migrant workers retrieve
their defaulted payment during his inspection of the rural areas of
southwest China's Chongqing
Municipality.
Labor and social security institutions in Beijing investigated
2,557 cases with 83 million yuan (US$10 million ) owed in payment
for 37,800 workers from January to October, said Wang Dexiu, deputy
director of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social
Security.
Meanwhile, the Beijing municipal construction committee has
ordered all construction companies in the city to pay migrant
workers their 2003 defaulted salaries before the Spring Festival,
or the traditional Chinese New Year, which next year falls on
Jan.22.
(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2003)